Eight Months, One Court Order: Colombia's Top Court Weighs Indigenous Access to Carbon Credit Data

Colombia’s Constitutional Court is considering whether Indigenous communities have the right to access detailed commercial information on the sale of carbon credits generated by projects developed on their territories, citing a lack of existing case law on the matter, according to Carbon Pulse. For buyers of Colombian carbon credits and for developers structuring REDD+ projects on collective lands, the case could set the first precedent on how transparent benefit and sales data must be in the country’s carbon market.

Eight months of unanswered requests

The case reaching the high court began in the resguardo de Carrizal, an Indigenous reserve on the banks of the Guaviare river in eastern Guainía, in the Colombian Amazon. Eliberto Lara Lara and Samuel Lara Bautista, two Puinave Indigenous leaders who are uncle and nephew, were elected cabildo gobernador and capitán of the reserve in mid-December 2024, according to Mongabay Latam.

For eight months, the two leaders sought detailed information on the carbon credit project active on their collective territory for two years, according to Mongabay Latam. They sent two formal petition requests to the developer, Corporación Masbosques, asking for a detailed report on credit sales made by the Awakadaa Matsiadali project, its financial structure and the execution of the resources corresponding to the reserve. Masbosques asked them to prove they were authorities of the reserve, then questioned the validity of the Interior Ministry and Inírida mayor’s office records they provided, and did not answer on the substance.

In October 2025 the two leaders filed a legal action seeking protection of their rights to petition, to access environmental information and to equality. On 10 November 2025, judge Alejandro Sastoque of the Inírida circuit court ruled that Masbosques had violated the community’s fundamental rights and ordered it to respond, according to Mongabay Latam. Only after that ruling did the developer provide a detailed response, in November 2025.

Why the Constitutional Court selected the case

The Constitutional Court selected the case in April 2026 precisely because of its novelty, according to Mongabay Latam. Alongside it, the court took up a second case concerning two Afro-Colombian community councils whose territories were included in a private carbon project, according to Mongabay Latam. The court has previously determined that Masbosques violated the rights of another Indigenous community in a similar project, according to CLIP.

Carbon Pulse reports that the court is examining the question against an absence of existing case law, according to Carbon Pulse. That means the ruling, whichever way it goes, is likely to define the baseline obligations developers face when communities living on project land ask how many credits have been sold and where the money went. The underlying question is whether the social and environmental safeguards attached to these projects, which state that any community member has the right to know project information, are enforceable in practice.

The project and the developer behind the dispute

Awakadaa Matsiadali is a REDD+ project linking a community that conserves Amazon rainforest with companies that buy the resulting credits to compensate their own emissions. Each credit represents one tonne of carbon dioxide kept out of the atmosphere, according to Mongabay Latam. The project had sold 1.4 million credits as of October 2026, according to Mongabay Latam.

Masbosques is an NGO from the Antioquia region that counts ten public entities among its partners and has developed nine carbon projects, including several in the Amazon, according to Mongabay Latam. The scale of those figures matters for the court’s deliberation: the case is not about a marginal operator but about a developer with a multi-project portfolio and public sector ties.

What it means for buyers and developers

For buyers of Colombian credits, the case adds a legal dimension to social integrity due diligence. A court-recognised right of communities to see sales and financial data would give buyers a verifiable reference point when assessing whether benefit-sharing claims made by developers match what communities actually know and receive. Credits from projects where beneficiaries cannot see the books carry a documented legal and reputational risk.

For developers, the procedural detail is instructive. The two Carrizal leaders obtained the information they requested only after a first-instance judge found a violation of fundamental rights, according to CLIP. A Constitutional Court ruling establishing a general access right would shift that burden from litigation to standard project practice.

Source: CarbonMeld — independent carbon credit market intelligence. Document-based quality scores and assessments across all major registries: carbonmeld.com

What to watch

The first signal is the substance of the Constitutional Court’s ruling on the Carrizal case and whether it articulates a general right to commercial information in carbon projects. The second is how the parallel case of the two Afro-Colombian community councils is resolved, since together the two rulings could define the transparency floor for projects on collective territories across Colombia, according to Mongabay Latam.